1. Technical Field
This application relates to techniques used in connection with responding to client requests and more particularly to determining responses using information represented using a bidirectional graph.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer systems may include different resources used by one or more host processors. Resources and host processors in a computer system may be interconnected by one or more communication connections. These resources may include, for example, data storage devices such as those included in the data storage systems manufactured by EMC Corporation. These data storage systems may be coupled to one or more servers or host processors and provide storage services to each host processor. Multiple data storage systems from one or more different vendors may be connected and may provide common data storage for one or more host processors in a computer system.
A host processor may perform a variety of data processing tasks and operations using the data storage system. For example, a host processor may perform basic system I/O operations in connection with data requests, such as data read and write operations.
Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using a storage device containing a plurality of host interface units, disk drives, and disk interface units. The host systems access the storage device through a plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide data and access control information through the channels to the storage device and the storage device provides data to the host systems also through the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives of the storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the host systems as a plurality of logical disk units. The logical disk units may or may not correspond to the actual disk drives. Allowing multiple host systems to access the single storage device unit allows the host systems to share data in the device. In order to facilitate sharing of the data on the device, additional software on the data storage systems may also be used.
In connection with data storage systems, or more generally any type of system acting as a server, a client, such as a host, may request information from the server. In connection with responding to the client request, the server may perform processing that includes performing multiple database queries which can be time consuming and use an undesirable amount of resources of the server. The server may perform such queries in response to each client request received. In particular, the amount of server resources consumed for responding to client requests by performing such queries on demand in response to each client request may be excessive in environments, for example, where there are multiple such clients and each of the multiple clients may issue a large number of requests to the server for information.